At Oliver Ames, the halls are alive with new school murals

The project is planned to produce a nearly life-sized mural for every boys and girls sport at Oliver Ames High School.

Joe Pelletier The Enterprise jdpelletier_ENT

EASTON -- The silvery murals catch the eyes of most folks who walk into the Oliver Ames High School gymnasium.

One shows a nearly life-sized huddle of Tiger football players, raising their helmets in the air. Another depicts 2017 graduate and former basketball player Carter Evin sending a hook shot over classmate Hannah Carroll.

They’re big, bright illustrations of Oliver Ames athletes that stop more than a few spectators -- parents, children and even athletes from opposing schools -- in their Tiger tracks.

“Yeah, we get a lot of reactions from kids from other schools,” junior artist Cameron Bourne said, grinning. “They don’t have anything like this.”

The athlete murals, a student project started by art teacher Kristyn Shea and the Art Club about two years ago, is still a long way from completion. The club hopes to depict every boys and girls sport on the walls near the gymnasium.

But those first few images done by the students (the football and basketball ones, for example) offer a stylish, school-spirited theme that has uniquely linked the school’s athletic and art students.

Stop by on a Tuesday or Saturday, and you’ll probably find Magaldi, Bourne and the rest of the dedicated Art Club students working on the murals, a small speaker providing some uptempo music while they sketch and paint.

Bourne was putting the finishing touches on a volleyball player’s ponytail Tuesday, while Jessica Rice, the club’s president, was cleaning up the shading on the football jerseys. Juniors Hannah Cahill and Gabi Cunha were on basketball duty.

Down the hall, Magaldi (the face and eyes specialist) was adding features to the cheerleading mural, and fellow senior Karen Chang was getting started on the soccer mural.

“When I told (soccer player) Abby (Reardon) she was going to be part of the mural, her face lit up,” Chang said.

The same went for Bourne, who said he’d be starting on the mural of one of his friends.

“It’s kind of like you’re drawing their legacy,” he said.

The students have nailed down a pretty good system for creating the murals. First, they track down (or recreate) a sports action photo. Then they create an outline on a transparency, then project it onto the wall. They sketch it out, then create a monochrome paint-by-number system using black and silver tones. The final product offers a silvery, almost Andy Warhol-esque image, with occasional splashes of orange color.

The athlete murals are only the latest in a decade of mural projects planned by Shea, the longtime Art Club adviser, and her students.

Outside the school’s cafeteria, a 2009 project replicates Vincent Van Gogh’s “Café Terrace at Night.” On one of the stairwells, a massive mural from 2007 shows the Ames’ Gate Lodge.

Others are dotted throughout the school: An activities mural that features various student organizations, a musical mural, a sprawling graduation mural.

"The bar is set high with these students,” Shea said. “And they continue to push it higher and higher.”